Steering Gear Box Nut
Thread Starter
Melting Slicks
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 3,407
Likes: 2
From: Carmichael CA
Steering Gear Box Nut
What was GM thinking? If you haven't taken a look at the nut holding the pitman arm to the steering gear box then you might be surprised...if you have then you know what I'm talking about.
The nut which holds the pitman arm to the steering gear box requires a 1-9/32 inch socket in order to remove it or torque it down to the 160 to 210 ft-lb spec. Just try to find this socket!?!?! What makes it worse is that nuts of this size are still produced...I found a replacement at ACE Hardware, but such a socket does not exist.
The closest I found was a 1-1/4 inch socket (the next size is 1-1/2), so I used my dremel and a diamond point grinding bit and whacked at the nut then polished it with a medium grinding bit so that it fit. I suppose the engineering numbers crunched down to indicate that the shaft needs to be a certain size and the nut needs to be a certain thickness, but it wouldn't have been the end of the world if they had reduced the thickness of the nut by .03125" so that a 1-1/4 would fit it perfectly, or better yet instead of perfectly flat flats the nut could have had the edges tapered so that they fit standard 1-1/4 inch sockets.
/rant
The nut which holds the pitman arm to the steering gear box requires a 1-9/32 inch socket in order to remove it or torque it down to the 160 to 210 ft-lb spec. Just try to find this socket!?!?! What makes it worse is that nuts of this size are still produced...I found a replacement at ACE Hardware, but such a socket does not exist.
The closest I found was a 1-1/4 inch socket (the next size is 1-1/2), so I used my dremel and a diamond point grinding bit and whacked at the nut then polished it with a medium grinding bit so that it fit. I suppose the engineering numbers crunched down to indicate that the shaft needs to be a certain size and the nut needs to be a certain thickness, but it wouldn't have been the end of the world if they had reduced the thickness of the nut by .03125" so that a 1-1/4 would fit it perfectly, or better yet instead of perfectly flat flats the nut could have had the edges tapered so that they fit standard 1-1/4 inch sockets.
/rant
Safety Car
Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 4,270
Likes: 20
From: Central Michigan
1 9/32! I knew something was missing when I bought my 3/4 socket set
Actually I've used an 1 5/16 with no problems. But it would be nice to have something that fits considering the torque required to install that nut
Actually I've used an 1 5/16 with no problems. But it would be nice to have something that fits considering the torque required to install that nut
Team Owner
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 37,637
Likes: 3,118
From: Crossville TN
Or you can use the next larger [standard sized] socket and make a strip-shim to take up the gap between the nut and the socket. You only need to tighten that one nut once every 30 years or so. 
Thread Starter
Melting Slicks
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 3,407
Likes: 2
From: Carmichael CA
Well...I had intended to use the car for racing as well as street. For racing I want a gear box with something like 6:1 ratio, but for street I think the 16:1 would be best. I had planned on just removing the nut from the gearbox and dropping the other one in. But now it looks like it would be easier to just pop the pitman arm off the control box and keep the pitman arm on.
